Flowers, Richmond, 1918-2007
- Biography:
- Flowers was born on November 11, 1918, in Dothan, Alabama. He attended Auburn University and law school at the University of Alabama. Flowers ran for and was elected Attorney General in 1962 during the height of the Civil Rights movement in Alabama. In September 1965 he prosecuted Lowndes County Deputy Sheriff T. L. Coleman for the murder of Episcopal seminarian Jonathan M. Daniels and the attempted murder of Catholic priest Richard F. Morrisoe. Daniels and Morrisoe had been arrested with Southern Christian Leadership Conference members attempting to register local black voters. A local jury determined Coleman had acted in self-defense and acquitted him. Flowers also prosecuted four Ku Klux Klansmen for the murder of Detroit housewife Viola Liuzzo, who was gunned down while transporting civil rights workers during the Selma to Montgomery March. Again, a local jury acquitted the accused, although they were later tried and convicted in federal court of violating Liuzzo's civil rights. Relying heavily on the support of newly registered black voters, Richmond Flowers campaigned for the Democratic nomination for Governor in 1966, and in a field of twelve, came in a distant second to Lurleen Wallace. His liberal position on civil rights cost him the support of most of the state's conservative voters. -- Alabama Department of Archives and History WWW site.
- Associated Subjects:
- Flowers, Richmond, 1918-2007
- Archival Collections And Reference Resources:
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